


Before the rain

by misdre



Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: M/M, actual pure self-indulgent fluff, gratuitous use of commas, it's a feature ok i know it's not correct
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 20:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16103516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misdre/pseuds/misdre
Summary: "Imagine your OTP taking a walk on a cold fall night, right before it rains." A post-canon oneshot about Max's anxiety over everything being so different from before.





	Before the rain

**Author's Note:**

> this is a small and very sappy story for the autumny mood(TM), fused with an idea of animeverse post-canon fic about rei and max's relationship during g-revolution. this story hasn't been beta-read because i just wanted to get rid of i--- i mean, quickly throw it out here, sorry for any grammar mistakes. (also, wow, present tense, i literally never do that but now i did)

Max grabs the handlebar of his bike and steers the vehicle to face down the road. The sun is well on its way down, and the last remaining rays paint his hair in hues of brilliant gold and give his curls an almost ethereal glow.

Not that there’s anyone around to see it. Alone, he kicks the asphalt with a worn-out sneaker and begins pedalling, sluggishly at first, then picking up speed. The old sneakers are too cramped for his feet; the cap squeezes his toes together painfully, but he refuses to stop using them. He clings to the shoes as one of the remnants of the good old days, a past that is already beginning to feel so distant that some of the details have faded away with time. Details that he knows were so important to him once.

The trees lining the street are bursting with yellow, orange, maroon, dim green, all the familiar hues of autumn that zoom past at a speed that doesn’t allow Max to focus his eyes on them. How many autumns has it been now since the first world championships? Six or seven? Not remembering causes a surge of frustration within Max. It must have been seven.

All those years ago, Max could have sworn with a hand over his heart that he would never stop playing beyblade, that it’d always stay with him, the game that had once been his entire world. Everything outside it had been trivial – to an unhealthy degree, as he could now tell. He had been simultaneously troubled and carefree, a child that didn’t know any better, who had been so engrossed in a hobby that in hindsight had led him into far too many dangerous situations at too young.

It was Max’s father who ultimately put an end to it. Although he had always been the number one supporter of Max’s hobby, Tarou was a seasoned Japanese businessman and well aware of the realities of the society, and he wanted his only son to go down the proper path in life and prosper in the future. When Max entered the last year of middle school, everything suddenly changed, so drastically that Max hazarded a guess that his father had finally heard the whole truth about his ‘innocent’ blading hobby. Nevertheless, Tarou had suddenly become very adamant about Max’s studies, wanted him to grow out of the childhood hobby that was consuming the majority of his free time, and urged Max to enter the best-ranked high school around. And once Max entered the school successfully, Tarou decided that he would go to the University of Tokyo next. He began policing how Max spent his time and forced him to prioritize studying for the upcoming entrance exams.

This new side of Tarou had greatly reminded Max of Judy at her worst – ironically enough, as his parents’ relationship had took a turn for worse in the last couple of years, and Max had always assumed it was because of his mother’s temperament. And because Tarou had finally had enough of Judy putting her career and the PPB first, and of her lying again and again that she would eventually follow them to Japan. They had been having countless arguments over the phone during those couple of years, and for what Max could follow from overhearing the calls from the next room, Tarou had accused Judy of having a double life and believed her to have a second relationship in New York. Max knew nothing about such things, and he didn’t even want to know.

Now that he’s older, Max can clearly trace back to a change in Tarou’s attitude and see the end of an era of carefree idealism in him, which also resulted in him pulling Max down with him. Down to reality from his beyblade-filled world. Max was no longer a child in Tarou’s eyes, and it no longer made sense for him to spend all his time on children’s spinning top game.

Well, Max knows by now that that’s only obvious. But it doesn’t stop him from missing the old days, and clinging onto the remaining memories.

It’s been a while since the last time the old BBA Team gathered together, even longer counting all seven of them, as Daichi disappeared soon after the whole farce with BEGA had ended, just as quickly as he had appeared on that strange day many years ago. Professor was rarely around anymore, as his parents were even stricter than Tarou; Manabu wasn’t a world champion beyblader, his parents never had any interest in the game to begin with, and thanks to his exceptional intelligence, he had also been sent off to study in a school of high prestige. His parents wanted him to become a doctor, and Max knew that Professor absolutely despised the idea, but the Saien household seemed to be one of those Japanese families where a parent’s word was the law, and there wasn’t much an only heir could do. Mizuhara Tarou wasn’t too different from them.

Hiromi is still around from time to time, but she, who has never been a blader to begin with, doesn’t have quite as profound a bond with the game, and rather treats it as an exciting phase from her childhood. The old team is but one of her numerous groups of friends, and she is so wonderfully popular that it now takes a lot of planning ahead to fit a meeting into her busy social schedule, and, well, none of them have all that much patience for that hassle. The rest of her friends have also repeatedly raised the question of one of them dating her, and Hiromi is tired of the gossiping and seems to have chosen to avoid the guys.

Max has always been jealous of Rei and Kai, who continued working for the BBA as tutors coaching less experienced bladers, while the rest of them were terrorized by their families into giving up on beyblade – except for Takao who, even now, is still like a beloved mascot to the BBA, despite having already retired from the game to actually pursue a different career to everyone’s great surprise. Takao has perhaps matured the most of them all; after a sloppy run at middle school, he discovered a new-found inspiration for studying in high school and now aspires to become a teacher. And Max is jealous of him as well. The pressure from Tarou – and the overall shock that resulted from it – has rather done the opposite to Max. Takao is still his best friend, but Max now feels that he’s the one who’s fallen behind in this hamster wheel of life, and sometimes it’s hard to be around Takao, who is so determined and never afraid to pursue the things he wants. Max doesn’t even know what he wants anymore.

Every day is the same. Max goes to school, and after school he attends cram school, and at home he studies some more, all with the university entrance exams looming in sight. He doesn’t know yet if he wants to move to the metropolitan area. A part of him wants to leave this shabby town behind and start over, but the thought of living in a big city again is also tiring to him. He hasn’t been to New York in years. He has very little interest in meeting his mother anymore, and has now fully embraced his identity as a citizen of Japan, not the States. He’s had several phases of hating his golden hair and considering dyeing it darker, but his school doesn’t allow hair dyes.

Max pulls the breaks and lands a foot on the ground again. He hops down his bike and leaves it on the stand in front of the building. The building is both old and new to him; it’s a perfect replica of the old BBA headquarters that was irrationally torn down for the BEGA back in the day. Although it’s already been several years since its reconstruction, the building has never felt exactly the same to Max. He still finds himself thinking back to the old headquarters whose walls, floors, windows and doors weren’t this clean and smooth. This one hadn’t been there to witness the formation of the original BBA Team for the first beyblade world championships, parsed together from children who didn’t know any better and had just happened to be somewhat talented. It all felt bizarre now, like a distant dream. They had been child celebrities, and that role hadn’t always treated them kindly. It had been a demanding and harsh world, often too much for children their age to shoulder.

It’s dark outside now. The sun has sunk too low, and too many crimson clouds have gathered on top of it as if to push the sun even lower, faster. Darkness comes a little earlier every day, and the air is suddenly cold, already pinching at Max’s faintly freckled cheeks with its frosty fingers. The streetlights are still asleep.

Max puts a hand in his pocket and pulls out a slab of plastic, a card that allows him to enter the headquarters as he pleases. Daitenji still allows him to hold onto that card, despite him not having been active in the beyblade scene in ages anymore. Perhaps the old man is still waiting for him to come back – for them all to come back.

And Max does come back, every now and then. Although Draciel now sits unused on a trophy stand in his bedroom, together with all the awards that he’s won in the past, Max keeps coming back here. Always during the sunset, late to the day when everyone has already gone home. He never runs to anyone in the entrance hall or the stairs that lead to the second floor. He doesn’t bother turning the lights on.

Max hasn’t even told Takao that he visits the old training room sometimes. Max cherishes it as a secret, as one of the few things of the past that he still allows himself to have. His heart beats just a little faster with every step he climbs, and the faint heat warms up his cheeks.

When he reaches the top, the training room’s double doors are slightly open. Max slides in without a sound, and yet his arrival doesn’t go unnoticed.

In the middle of the room is Rei, standing by the windows that take up most of the left side wall. His tall figure is surrounded by what little light reaches the room. As he turns to look at Max, that light is reflected in his eyes, making them gleam with dim gold.

Max knew that Rei would be here. They have made no plans to meet each other, but he knew, had known as soon as Rei told the team that he would be returning to Japan, on this exact date, to come retrieve something he’d left there. Whenever he came back, Max always found him here, in the BBA training room that had so long ago become their special place.

Calm exchange of greetings, brotherly pats on the back. What Max wants to do is throw himself at Rei, touch Rei’s hair and face and his shoulders that have grown a little wider again since the last time, but Max has learned enough self restraint in later years to not do such childish things. They’re not children anymore. Everyone else has changed, so Max can’t remain the same either.

A small, suffocating feeling clenches Max’s chest. It’s been a couple of months since the last time he saw Rei, and Max has missed him every day since.

The room is a replica, the same but also different from the one they ran into each other all those years ago. They met here – here, which was also not here – by chance on the night before the final match of the third world championships. That alone Max is never going to forget. He remembers that moment like it was yesterday, painted in the colours of the sunset; and he remembers the day that followed, all the joy and excitement of the match between Kai and Takao that brought them all together again. How much fun they had together. And then some.

Max and Rei have discussed the events of that summer many times. How they both were plagued with self doubt about leaving the BBA and challenging Takao as his rivals. Max was forced to leave by Judy; Rei made the decision in pursue of improving himself. Neither handled the situation particularly well, being the children they were, and some feelings were hurt, but everything turned out fine in the end, somehow. Whenever Takao is involved, things somehow turn out fine. Maybe that’s why Takao can now comfortably pursue whatever he wants in life.

Rei doesn’t say a thing about the past now, doesn’t comment on the old training room nor on yet another reunion in the same old place. And Max is thankful that he doesn’t. Instead, they decide to go outside in silent consensus and begin walking down the street side by side. Just like they did on that early morning years ago, and after the sunset a couple of months later, and many times since.

Dirty brown and yellow leaves, crushed and tattered, litter the asphalt under their feet. The streetlights are finally awakening from their quiet slumber. On fleeting impulse, Max almost takes Rei’s gloved hand in his own, but decides against it on the last second.

He wonders if Rei has forgotten.

Rei begins talking about his family, and is excited to show Max new photos from his phone. The phone is an old model, the same one that Max got for Rei some years ago, to better stay in contact whenever Rei was gone. While Max is glad to see that Rei still uses that phone, he cannot not notice how much more Rei appears to use it to take pictures of his clan in comparison to the number of messages Max has ever received from him over the years.

Everyone is now all grown up back in China. Rei tells Max how Rai has finally become the new leader of their village, how remarkable he has become. Kiki is no longer the little brat that Max remembers him as, and Mao, now a beautiful young woman with an outstandingly fierce aura, works as her brother’s left hand in the village council. Everyone is doing well. Gaou has even lost some weight. Rei speaks of them all with the softest of smiles on his face, and Max could stare at that smile forever. He forces himself to tear his eyes off and stare at the irregular blotches of light on the asphalt instead.

Max is beginning to regret coming here tonight. He has underestimated the childish crush he still has on his old friend. He thought it to surely have died down by now. He’s not even part of Rei’s life anymore.

The cool evening breeze rustles in the trees surrounding the road, startling their branches into dropping what little remains of their past foliage. When Rei asks how things have been here in Japan, Max talks about Takao’s new aspiration to become a teacher – which suits him very well, Max adds – and about Hiromi, who has been gaining some fame with a blog about Western astrology, and Kai who comes and goes as he pleases, as Rei well knows. Max’s own words sound distant in his ears which are beginning to feel numb from cold again. He can hear the whispers of the wind awfully loudly, while his own voice seems to get lost somewhere along the way. He knows he’s saying something, but his thoughts aren’t in the words. The bare branches look like dark skeleton hands reaching out for them on the deserted road.

Max jumps a little when he feels a touch on his shoulder and reflexively turns to look at Rei, remembering a second too late how hard he’s been avoiding doing so. Rei’s expression is grim with concern, his eyebrows knit together in a questioning frown.

“Has something happened?” he asks.

Max stops walking. “What? No. Everything’s been the same as always.”

He answers truthfully, but the words feel heavy to himself. _The same as always._ How is everything the same as always, if nothing is like it used to be? Nothing except Max himself. He alone seems to never change, while everything around him does, at a frightening pace. Everyone else has moved on with their lives, and Max alone is refusing to move on with his. He’s still the child he was all those years ago, hates all the changes forced on him, still has the same old sneakers and unchanging feelings from back then, and seems to be unable to take the next step forward. He feels like he’s sinking.

With delay, Max notices that Rei is moving his hand, rubbing the shoulder he’s still holding. Max isn’t sure whether Rei has said something again. The humming inside his head is too loud. His thoughts are drowning out everything but the rustle of the wind. They’re trying to pull him down, deeper, into a blank state.

“I don’t want to go to university,” Max hears himself say. “Everyone else has moved on, and I don’t even want to go. But it’s not like I have anything here, either. Everyone is leaving. You have your own life elsewhere. I have nothing here, but I don’t want to go. It’s just what dad wants.”

He’s staring at a stray strand of hair that droops over Rei’s shoulder, dark against the woollen fabric of his shirt. Such a warm-looking shirt. It’s different from what he’s used to seeing Rei wear, but it suits him well. It looks soft, and has round, entwined patterns on it. Max stares at all the miniscule details as he speaks, not entirely in control of what’s coming out, his mind is all too fascinated by that hair and the soft fabric of that shirt instead.

Despite all this, Max soon wakes up to the realization that a thick silence hangs above the two of them. He’s rather sure that Rei hasn’t said anything in a while – perhaps it’s only been seconds, perhaps minutes, he’s not sure. The hand on his shoulder has stopped.

He can’t hear the wind anymore, either. Nothing but piercing silence. Max’s bare ears and fingers are cold.

And when Rei speaks again to end that silence, Max has no trouble hearing him anymore. Rei speaks with moderation, but with his voice tinted by hesitation.

“It’s not just you. I’ve been thinking about what I really want to do, too. And about the future. I’m tired of going back and forth.”

Max presses his lips tightly together. This topic was a mistake. He doesn’t want to talk about it, nor hear Rei talk about it. Nausea is making its way up his throat. He knows what Rei’s about to say – he’s known all along that Rei would eventually stop coming to Japan, stay where he really belongs to, let go of the past and live with his own people. None of it comes as news to Max, but he doesn’t want to hear it.

Rei then continues: “But I can’t feel myself whole as long as I stay in one place. That’s just not for me. Now that Rai’s finally been accepted as the next leader, I’m not bound to the village anymore – I can finally go. I’ve been planning it for a long time.”

Rei’s words are slowly sinking in. Max was wrong – Rei didn’t mean staying in China, he’s talking about leaving the village behind to go travel the world again. Without anyone’s grudge on his shoulders this time. Yes, Max indeed remembers Rei mentioning before how he’d want to go back to the pilgrim lifestyle, but Max has been placing the thought somewhere in the far-away future. But this _is_ the future.

Something cold is creeping up Max’s spine. It violently clutches his insides and makes them grind together painfully. If Rei stayed in China, at least Max would always know where he is, have a sense of security, know that he’s with people who love him. But this is different. Rei is about to set off somewhere where nobody can follow, and there’s something much more final about it, and something much scarier. And lonelier.

 _Then I can as well go to Tokyo_ , Max thinks grimly. _I’m never going to see him again, anyway._

Max nods his head against his will, and after a short pause asks: “What are you here for?”

Rei seems thrown off by the sudden question.

“You’re not going to leave without telling the others, are you?” Max lifts his chin and hesitantly looks at Rei’s face. It has a strangely purple hue in the bluish glow of the streetlights.

Rei coughs a little, as if to clear his throat, and moves his hand to tuck some stray hair behind his ear, most of which just immediately falls back on his face again. A pointless, nervous gesture.

“No... Of course not.” Rei reaches down and takes Max’s cold hands in his own. “Will you come with me, Max?”

Max blinks.

Then he tilts his head. “To tell the others?”

“No!” Rei lets out a short, jittery laugh. “To travel the world with me! We can go wherever you want – we can go to New York, or anywhere else.”

Max stares at him. His mind has drawn a complete blank. Only seconds ago he was bracing himself for accepting the unavoidable, and the sudden backflip does not fit in his current headspace at all. When he attempts to open his mouth to say something, his lower lip quivers uncontrollably.

“I’ve thought about it for a long time,” Rei carries on instead, “but I was worried that you’d say no because you have your life planned ahead already. But the way you are now... It only makes me want to take you away from here. I want to see you be your happy self again.” He’s squeezing Max’s hands so hard, his touch is teetering on the fine line of being painful.

_He really means it... He really means it... Oh my God he really means it._

Max lets out a choked cry as air escapes his lungs. Emotion finally overruns his rational senses and he throws himself at Rei, like he has wanted from the moment he saw him, he wraps his arms around those broad shoulders, buries his face on that soft shirt and his fingers in the beautiful dark hair.

“Of course – of course I’ll come with you! I hate the thought of living without you – I hate it, I hate it so much...” The rest of his words trail off, muffled by the shoulder of Rei’s shirt.

Rei grabs Max by waist and lifts him up without any effort, whirling him around in the air. He does two whole circles before landing Max back on the asphalt. He’s wearing a wide but gentle smile as he looks at Max face again. “Come on. Don’t cry, or I’ll cry too.”

And Max doesn’t even notice the tears until Rei softly wipes them away with his gloved hand.

“But why me?” Max then asks, his ocean-coloured eyes sparkling. “Wouldn’t you rather take Mao-chan or someone else with you? Or Kai, or Takao or...”

Rei silences him by shaking his head. “I don’t think any of them would come with me even if I asked. And anybody but you has always been out of the question, anyway.” He raises his hand in an exaggerated gesture of feigned ignorance, rolling his eyes towards the sky. “First of all, you know English, which is very convenient...”

“Oh, I should have figured _that_ much.”

Rei grins shortly, nervously, then pulls Max a little closer again by his thin waist.

“And secondly, I... I... well...”

Blushing fiercely, he shies away from saying it on the last moment. His face is so warm that Max can feel its glow against his own. The way his exaggerated boldness melts into that flustered tension in a matter of seconds – Max loves everything about it, and everything about him.

Rei’s skin feels hot against Max’s cold lips as he pecks him on the cheek. Rei jolts his shoulders a little, but doesn’t resist.

The entire world has turned upside down so fast, it’s making Max’s head spin; and despite his feet being firmly on the ground again, he still feels like he’s floating. A part of him feels as if he has just woken up from a long, long sleep, a sleep during which he’s lost a piece of himself somewhere along the way, and now he has found it, picked it up and put back in place, just like that. Kissing and embracing Rei feels like the most obvious thing in the world, when only a moment ago he still hesitated to take his hand. Now Max is no longer scared.

And suddenly his usual wide, silly smile comes to him so easily, like a long-forgotten friend.

“Thank you,” Max says quietly and rests his face against Rei’s neck. He can feel Rei’s agitated heartbeat gradually calm down.

Something wet touches Max’s forehead. When he opens his eyes, he sees the cloud ceiling that hangs low on the sky, like a cover of dark cotton candy, ready to rain down on them any minute now. Another droplet falls on the freckles of Max’s nose.

“Let’s go to my place,” Rei says. “There’s so much more I want to talk to you about.” His ‘place’ is only a room in a nearby apartment complex owned by the BBA. It’s been so long since the last time Max visited that place.

Max nods, momentarily thinking back to his bike that’s standing abandoned in front of the headquarters, but decides to forget about it as Rei slides a warm hand into Max’s own. He can go get the bike when it stops raining... or maybe tomorrow.

With laced fingers, they continue walking down the faintly lit street, accompanied by nothing but each other and the light autumn rain.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the story is very short, so i couldn't really fit the entire idea that i had, but my intention was to imply that they got a little something special going on behind the scenes after the takao vs kai match when everyone was celebrating together, but max doesn't really know if rei took it seriously or whether he even remembers it. i've also always liked the little detail that they leave together at the beginning of the season, and return to the same place to reminisce about it later. so i took all of that a bit further, or intended to anyways.
> 
> this was originally a lot more about max being depressed and suffering from anxiety, but then i just went with fluffity fluff and didn't make him suffer so much. JUST this once!


End file.
